Man Martin's Blog, page 159

On The Road with Nancy: Dippin' Dots

Nancy and I are driving up to Iowa City to celebrate my sister Nettie's completion of her PhD.  With typical Martin timing we left at the height of rush hour, so after a couple of hours and a couple of dozen miles on the road, we stopped for dinner.  (Not to worry, Nancy and I are low-pressure travelers and don't sweat delays.  The only thing that makes us crazy is going without food.)

So anyway, we stopped in this sub shop where one of the dessert choics was Dippin Dots.  Remember Dippin Dots, those little ice cream bee-bees you used to get at Six Flags or wherever?  Do you remember their slogan?  "Ice Cream of the Future."  That was always their slogan.  I remember the first time I had it back around 1976 - I think it was at the World of Sid and Mary Croft (don't ask).  "Ice Cream of the Future," it said.  My only two mental images of the future were George Jetson and Dr. Cornelius from Planet of the Apes, but I couldn't imagine either of them eating Dippin Dots.

I saw Dippin Dots intermittently over the years, but their slogan "Ice Cream of the Future!" never changed.  When I had daughters - I believe there was Dippin Dots at Stone Mountain, the sales pitch was still the same.  The twenty-first century rolled around and Dippin Dots was still the ice cream of the future.

But.  Here's the thing.  In the restaurant last night.  Dippin Dots.  No longer touts itself as the ice cream of the future.  I checked their website and confirmed it.  No mention of the future.
Nancy and I are heading to St Louis next, where we'll stop on our way to Iowa.  We better enjoy it while we can.  I don't want to alarm her, but surely the Apocalypse is on the way.  I've seen the signs.  Dippin Dots is the ice cream of the recent past.
Nancy and I

Illegal Immigration and Schizophrenia

Nancy recently posted on Facebook about the inconvenient new requirements to get a driver's license, and got such a huge response, it set me to thinking.  Nancy had to go to the DMV twice because she discovered in Georgia you now need four documents to get a driver's license: a passport or birth certificate, a Social Security Card, and two proofs of residence.  The problem was exacerbated because most of the mail she would use to establish proof of residence - power bills, water bills, etc - are in my name.  I can only hope when the time rolls around for me to renew my driver's license, the law will be rescinded.  I'm not even sure where my Social Security Card is, and I'm pretty sure my passport is expired.  (Oh, by the way - to get a new Social Security Card, you have to have a driver's license.  This is like setting your clock by your watch, then turning around and setting your watch by your clock.)

All of this, presumably, is to crack down on illegal aliens, who, presumably, are taking advantage of the DMV's generosity and abusing our fine roadway system by flagrantly passing driving tests and becoming licensed drivers.  Presumably in the face of this harassment, they'll say, "Olvidele" (forget it), and go back where they came from.  On foot.

This is the whole problem with democracy: it's responsive to the will of the people.  Trying to thwart illegals at the DMV is like hunting mosquitoes with a shotgun.  (This characterization is in no way meant to equate illegal aliens with insects; it is just a metaphor for total inefficacy.)  In addition to resulting in inconvenience for Georgia drivers, it will ensure that illegals will drive without licenses.

Why wouldn't they?  They're here illegally.

And if a driver is unlicensed, there's surely no reason for him to get insurance.  A friend of ours was recently rear-ended by an unlicensed Hispanic driver.  Perhaps he'd have been unlicensed (and therefore uninsured) regardless of the DMV's policy, but what benefit did the government confer by guaranteeing he was uninsured?

If you really want to catch illegal aliens, the solution is so simple.  There's a gas station near our house at the corner of American Industrial and West Hospital; it's called Mercado Bueno - I make this not up.  Drive there between six-thirty and eleven in the morning in an unmarked white pick-up truck.  Invite any men loitering outside to hop in the back.  They will do so willingly.  Drive them to the INS office, process them, and deport them.

I hope this does not sound racist, but that's exactly how simple it would be.  The reason we don't do that, naturally, is because Hispanics are so darn useful as day-laborers.  No matter what we say, we don't mind them on construction sites or yard crews.  We just don't want them getting appendectomies, educations, or driver's licenses.  Illegal aliens are the true proletariat.  They have nothing to sell but their labor.  It's almost as if - almost - government harassment like at the DMV is designed to ensure they stay that way.

I realize there is a huge cost of illegal aliens receiving government services.  But there is also an economic benefit to having access to a cheap labor pool, and it is not entirely true illegals don't pay taxes.  Every time they buy a Slim Jim at Mercado Bueno, they're paying sales tax.  Moreover, we have to factor in the cost of enforcement - a cost paid not only in tax dollars but in inconveniences like Nancy faced scouting around for four pieces of paper to prove she hadn't slipped across the border from Guatemala.  In any case, it's a sure bet we won't find a solution to the knotty issue of immigration as long as we persist in our schizophrenia: getting snippy when we see Hispanics at the free health clinic but not batting an eye to see them mowing someone's lawn.

Charity and Other Get-Rich Quick Schemes

So I've been reading about this Kickstarting thing, and it sounds really cool.  Kind of like Craig's List, except people just send you money.  Kind of like my mother used to do for me, only now I got to send money to my kids, which isn't as much fun, I can tell you.

I've been trying to come up with a charitable or humanitarian idea that would benefit mankind or the environment but principally me, that I could put up on Kickstarter and get the ol' moneyball rolling.
I could raise money to hire somebody to bring me sandwiches, but that's not exactly charitable work, is it?  I mean, it's nice when someone brings you a sandwich, but it's not exactly charitable.  That's a shame, because I had a very detailed itemized list worked out for all the expenses for that one, right down to the cost of the mayonnaise.

Another idea I have is for "Chicken Rescue," which is kind of like canine rescue where you save some dog who's about to be put to sleep or something, only it's for chickens.  To be fair, neither of our chickens are in great need of rescuing, but that's the whole point.  This allows others to be in on the rescue post-facto.  And I'd have to check with the guy I bought them from, but I'm pretty sure their parents are dead, which makes them orphaned chickens on top of everything else, adding to the pathos. As part as my chicken rescue program, if a hawk ever went after one of my chickens, I'd try to fight the hawk off.  And if I got there too late - hawks are pretty damn fast - I'd rescue another chicken.
Another possibility is just conventional canine rescue, with our dog Zoe.  Zoe is very sad sometimes, and I'm sure it would cheer her up if she knew a bunch of total strangers were chipping in money for her upkeep.  I'm also almost certain she's an orphan too.  I can almost hear the PayPal account going ka-ching.

My real dream, though, is Jaguar Rescue.  Not the cat, the car.  I currently drive a Camry, which is what makes the subject of Jaguar Rescue so dear to my heart.  According to the internet, and if it's on the internet, it must be true, a Jaguar XF costs a mere $50 K.  I don't know what XF stands for but clearly it raises the value considerably; why would anyone want a mere Jaguar when you could have one with letters after it.  Especially the X.  Rrow.

So as you can see, I've got a zillion great ideas for charitable works to benefit that portion of mankind represented by me.  The hard part will be narrowing it down to one.  Maybe a Kickstarting campaign to help me select which Kickstarting campaign I'll do...

Baby You're a Rich Man - Review

One of the coolest things - if not the coolest thing - about being a writer is you end up hobnobbing with so many other writers.  What a lovely smug feeling it gives to name drop, "Oh, so-and-so Insert Name of Talented Author Here my personal friend..."

Baby You're a Rich Man just happens to be by my, ahem, personal friend Chris Bundy.  It also happens to be an astounding piece of work, its telling as unlikely as its subject matter.  It is the story of Kent Richman, erstwhile John Lennon impersonator of the Japanese TV show, Strange Bonanza.  A Strange Bonanza indeed - pursued by a diminishing trickle of paparazzi, his own personal demons, and a would-be killer bent on vengeance, Richman ultimately finds sanctuary and possible redemption from his lover's uncle, a chain-smoking Buddhist priest.

Yes, yes, I know, you read a story identical to that just last week, but part of what makes this book so remarkable is a multi-layered approach that's impossible to fully explain here.  Switching between real-time events, cuttings from tabloid stories, and game-show clips, enhanced by graphic-novel-esque illustrations by Max Currie, the effect on the reader is a bombardment of pop-culture similar to the one we experience waiting in a check out line, simply commuting to work, or... being an erstwhile John Lennon impersonator from a Japanese variety show.  Chris, my personal friend, brilliantly paints the modern dilemma with all its absurdity and dark humor.  Recovering yourself in the mirror-world of wannabes, never-wases, and hangers-on of celebrity culture.

Fathers and Other Worthwhile Inventions

A billion or so years ago, some eukaryotes dreamed
up the concept of "men"It's a little-known fact that men were invented by women.  Yep, go back and re-read the sentence, it means exactly what it says.  Men were invented by women.

About a billion or so years ago, in what's called the Proterozoic era, a few unicellular organisms decided to give sexual reproduction a whirl.  Up to then, everybody was pretty much "Mom," giving birth willy-nilly, and men were a pipe-dream thought of by a lunatic fringe of eukaryotes who noticed a drawback to asexual reproduction, or as they called it back then, "the way we've always done it."

The problem is, when a mamma amoeba loves herself very, very much and gives God gives her a little baby amoeba, the mother and daughter are exactly alike.  This leads to all sorts of conflict in amoeba families, I can tell you, especially around holidays.  So one eukaryote pointed out, "Look, if we invented ourselves some men, there'd be a lot more genetic variation, and we might get out there and evolve for a change.  Besides we'd have someone to take out the garbage."

Now if this proposal had been put forward during the Phanerozoic, it would have been laughed out of the room, but it was heady days back in the good ol' Proterozoic; the amount of oxygen was increasing, the world had its first super-continent, and in things were popping in general, so it seemed like anything was possible.

Of course some eukaryotes may have objected.  "What if," they speculated, "these - for lack of a better word, we'll call them men, don't have enough to do.  I mean, they won't have to give birth because we're keeping that job ourselves, and they'll only need to take out the garbage maybe twice a week.  What if with all that free time on their hands, they just decide to take over all the economic, political, and religious power, and glom up all the good jobs, and we have to spend another few thousand years just trying to get an equal share with these creatures we invented in the first place."

You can imagine the derisive chuckle the other eukaryotes had at that.  That would never happen.  And one of them said, "I don't know about you ladies, but I'm going to make myself a man."  And she did, and the rest is prehistory.

Happy Father's Day and thanks to the eukaryotes.

Things I Don't Understand

There are many things in the world I do not understand.  Here are three of them.

In the hardware store where I shop, there is a hardware section.  Isn't that like having a grocery section in the grocery store?

When I go to the gym, I notice cars circling the lot trying to find the closest place to park.  But didn't these people go to the gym to exercise?

Listening to the radio, I heard an advertisement for Belltone Hearing Aids.  Isn't a radio advertisement directed at the hearing-impaired...?  Well, enough said.

Are You Going to Finish That?

Pope Francis came out and lambasted the developed nations for wasting food, stating that it was equivalent to stealing from the poor.  Basically, he was saying, "Are you going to finish that?  Think of all the starving children in India."

And while he didn't mention any nations by name as prime food-wasters, it was pretty clear he was talking about the you-ess-ay.  And he's got a point.

The other night Nancy and I were in an authentic Italian restaurant, which I know it was authentic because there was a picture of Frank Sinatra on the wall, and Dean Martin was on the stereo.  I ordered spaghetti and meatballs.  (Yes, I know, but it's what I felt like, dammit, and by the way, I think this kind of food snobbery is part of what Francis was on about.  You don't see a starving person say, "Egg foo yung, phooey!  I want authentic Chinese!")  Anyway, after I ordered, the waiter asked me what I wanted for my "tomorrow pasta."  I was nonplussed.  I had been pretty plussed up to then, but now I was nonplussed.  The waiter explained that in addition to the ample serving I would get as my entree, I was entitled to a whole other entree to take home for tomorrow.  Taken aback, but not displeased, I asked for the lasagna.

Good Lord, what is this country coming to?  Restaurants have discovered they can't increase their already massive serving sizes, so they're starting to fudge over into the next meal. As it happens, we took home two containers because Nancy didn't finish all her picata either.  Now in fairness, this food will not go to waste, but still... how much of it there is!

When we remodeled many and many a year ago we replaced our old crappy white refrigerator with a brand-new stainless steel crappy refrigerator.  We did not throw away our old one, however.  It's still in the basement, filled with food.  Beside it is a chest freezer, filled with food.  When my daughters went to college, they each got a mini-fridge.  We still have those, too.  They are filled with diet sodas.  This in addition to a pantry brimming with non-perishables.

Ye gods.  I can only hope the pope doesn't drop by unexpectedly, how would we be able to justify such excess.  In our defense, I can say Nancy and I are conscientious about not wasting food.  Still, even the stuff we deem fit only for the dog - neck and back bones from a roasted chicken - would make a main course in many parts of the world.

I don't know quite what to do here, because I am certainly not going to abandon my lifestyle of comfort and plenty.  I take a sip of coffee and ponder.  It's good coffee: ground fresh this morning from beans flown in from Columbia.  In the freezer downstairs I have another bag from Kenya and one from Sumatra.

My Fantasy with Terry Gross

NPR's Terry Gross.
Tell me this woman doesn't need a good meal.Before you get too excited, the fantasy involves feeding her.

Terry Gross is host of NPR's Fresh Air, and the best interviewer on the planet.  Many a day I have listened to her, imagining being on her show.  I have gone so far as to rehearse answers to specific questions, questions that would arise as Terry - by this time we're on a first-name basis - uncovered an unsuspected vein of wisdom so deep and so rich, she would have to extend the interview over several programs, and in fact, might have to dedicate the entire show Fresh Air to exploring Man Martin in perpetuity.

The main part of the fantasy, however, deals with the pre-interview.  In this part you have to imagine that Ms Gross - at this point we are still very formal - has come to Atlanta to do some background research, and I casually say I am very busy during the day; however, I'd be happy to talk to her over supper - it's crucial to call it supper, not dinner - and why doesn't she come over to our house.  To her suggestion that we meet at a restaurant, I would say something to the effect of, "Oh, we don't need to go to all that trouble," and "there's always room at the table for one more," etcetera.  I must sound gracious but above all else unpretentious and genuine.  Getting the tone exactly right will take a great deal of practice beforehand.  On no account may she dine anywhere but our house.

Here's where the Martin Plan rolls into action, and ultimately sets the stage for the series of interviews that will result in turning the entire program of Fresh Air over to the topic of Me.

We will not serve Terry - back to first names again - on the good china nor with crystal and silver.  It must seem that while we are happy to have her, we are not even capable of "putting on airs."  I might possibly serve her on our "Georgia Plates" special plates commissioned by the Transylvania Club of Sandersville, Georgia commemorating various key moments in Georgia history.  There is one plate in particular I have in mind for her, which features a woman holding several British officers captive at rifle point.  It's a pretty startling scene to discover under your food, and Terry would never in a million years guess we'd deliberately seen to it she'd gotten that plate on purpose.

As for the meal itself, this is the genius part.  It's all very plain cooking, down-home even, but of a transcendent variety.  Again, Nancy and I will play it off as if eating this way were the most natural thing in the world.

We will have black-eyed peas, and I know you're thinking, so what, but I have a recipe for black-eyed peas that would make you re-think the whole vegetable.  Ditto for our okra and tomatoes - ours is not the least bit slimy, and though expressions such as "explosion of flavor" are trite and hyperbolic, those are exactly what apply.  The iffy vegetable is Nancy's creamed corn.  There are store-bought varieties which are quite decent, and I have happily eaten them.  Nancy's home-made creamed corn, however, is so good, there's something obscene about it.  It should almost be served separately like desert, it's not in the least sweet, but it has a rich decadent quality that makes it hard to qualify even as a vegetable.   You can't really pass it off as "something we just whipped up."  If Terry challenges us on the creamed corn, the jig is up, she'll be on to us.  But it's a risk I'll just have to take.  For desert, chocolate pie.

The piece de resistance, however, will be the fried chicken.  And this is the part I still haven't gotten quite right.  Periodically, I experiment with a different recipe, and I'm almost on the point of abandoning the process of brining, because to my taste, it makes the chicken too salty.  I think next time I'll soak the chicken overnight in buttermilk only.  Also, I'm still perfecting the breading.  My friend R Mike Burr - for some reason in this context I feel required to use his first initial - claims his mother makes an otherworldly batter involving a mixture of milk and egg and double dredging.  I'm looking into it.

Every other component of the fantasy meal is in place but the chicken.  And as soon as I have that ready, I need only await Terry's call.

Hopefully she doesn't read this in the meantime.

Squirrels vs the Tomatoes

At this point, I'm pretty convinced Satan has a bushy tailThis is the middle of June and we have not gotten one ripe tomato from the garden.  Not one.  We haven't even come close.  The reason is that the squirrels are attacking them while still green on the vine.

The squirrels used to wait until a tomato was almost ripe before going at it.  I'd come out and the tomato would be starting to blush, and I'd think, I'll wait a couple more days.  The next day it'd definitely be turning red, but maybe with a green crown at the top, and I'd say to myself, one day more.  Then I'd come out the next day and - chomp! - a squirrel would've taken a big old bite out of it.  I was always trying to time it so I'd pick the tomato would get as ripe as it could be before a squirrel decided to have himself a snack at my expense.  It was like a game.  A frustrating, maddening, infuriating game.

Now, however, as I have already said, the squirrels aren't even waiting for the tomatoes to get ripe.

I used to think squirrels were cute animals, what with their sleek little bodies and their adorable bushy, feather-like tails.  I now see them what they are, watching from treetops, their dark eyes glinting with malice, their perpetually-growing teeth waiting to sink into one of my tomatoes.  And as for their bushy tails, I'm pretty sure at this point Satan has an adorable bushy tail.

I've wrapped the tomatoes in plastic mesh and sprinkled them with pepper spray, and I'll set up the Scarecrows - motion-detector water sprinklers.  I will get a ripe tomato this summer, fully ripe and untouched by squirrel lips, I will, so help me, I will.

But meanwhile, the thought of it.  There are so many, and while individually they are harmless-seeming, there are so many.  It's like Hitchcock's The Birds, only with squirrels.  The trees are a-swarm with vermin, with sleek little bodies and diabolical bushy tails.  Their noses twitch.  They twitch.

How will I sleep at night?

How to Beat a Terrorist

The current cover of People Magazine features three beautiful young women, not unusual for People, I suppose, but these particular women - Mery Daniel, Adrianne Haslet, and Heather Abbott - are three of the marathoners injured by the Boston bomber.  I haven't read the article itself, which I assume, like all People Magazine Articles, is about three hundred words long (People has replaced Life as grown-ups' picture book)

But I don't need to read the article, the picture says it all.  I will not deny that tears brimmed my eyes when I saw them.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is how to be terrorism.  If the objective of terrorism is terror, then have no terror.  Go on being beautiful and young.  Be dauntless, be brave.  Smile.

Far be it from me to wish vengeance on any soul, but there is a part of me that hopes this picture is in Dzhokhar Tsanaev's cell, where he must look at it every day.  And if there is an afterlife, Tamerlan must see the smiling faces of these beautiful women he tried to hurt - and sees them every day.  Forever.